What does the word ‘zeal’ mean to you? Do you picture some running around fanatically shouting and calling our attention to some-thing very important that needs our focus immediately? Do you have a picture in mind of Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders charging up San Juan hill in Cuba during the Spanish American War? What does the word mean to you?
There have been a number of people described as zealous in both the Old and New Testaments. An early one was Phinehas. It is recorded in Numbers 25 that he was zealous for the Lord and pierced a Israelite man who had married a Midianite woman because this marriage corrupted Israel’s faith. There is the zealous Elijah, calling down fire from heaven on pagan soldiers and prophets of Baal and anyone else that presented a threat to Israel’s faith.
You don’t read much about the zeal of Mattathias, the Maccabean warrior, who was led to kill a fellow Jew and countless Syrian soldiers in order to defend the faith of their ancestors, as recorded in 1 Maccabees 2. All three of these men could have served as Paul’s boyhood heroes. Like his role models, Paul was fanatical for the faith of his fathers, the faith of Judaism.
Paul uses the Greek word zelotes in verse 14; from this word we get our word ‘zealot.’ It could simply mean ‘loyalist’ but also has the sense of fanatic. A fan is someone who roots for his team; a fanatic is someone who will do almost anything to make sure his team wins.
Paul, when we first meet him in Acts 7, is a fanatical zealot for Judaism as it was practiced in the first century. Saul was so zealous for Jehovah that he would be willing to use violence in order to defend Judaism. He believed that Christians threatened what was most holy in Israel, and was will to defend his faith to the death - whether his own death or the death of those he considered to heretics.
Can I add a side note? God doesn’t need us to defend him. Have you ever read anywhere in the Bible where God was so weak that he had to have human intervention in order to save him? I haven’t. God is quite strong enough and big enough to defend himself and his name without my help at all. If fact, if it ever got to the point where God needed me to come to his aid, I don’t believe I would still believe that God was omnipotent - all powerful.
Paul the pre-Christian
“For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.”.” (1:13-14)
Before his conversion, Paul would have viewed the Christian proclamation that Jesus was Lord as a fatal heresy that challenged the fundamental belief in one God. Furthermore, according to Deuteronomy 21:22, the preaching of a crucified Messiah would bring a curse to the land. Paul was willing to do anything, including murder, to remove this blasphemous blight from Jerusalem.
Paul points out his Jewishness, presenting his credentials so that he could do two things: 1) some had said he was ‘soft’ on the law. In other words, he didn’t really believe everything that the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, taught about man’s relationship to God and man’s obedience to the commandments of God.
Because he was considered ‘soft’ on the law, (2) he was failing miserably in his life as an orthodox Jew and thus had joined the Jesus movement hoping for more success. Both charges were false. Only an act of God could explain the seismic shift in Paul’s theology and proclamation, and that seismic shift happened to Saul on the road to Damascus in Acts 9.
Do you remember when you accepted Christ as your savior? Was it an emotional experience? Was there a big change in your life and lifestyle? What did the Lord do to get your attention? I expect the Lord did nothing as drastic as robbing you of one of your senses for three days, and then restoring that sense to you as he did to Paul.
We all have a pre-Christian testimony - we all have something to share about our life before we accepted Christ as our savior. You may have been a child, a teenager, a young adult, and adult. You may have been living at home, going to school, serving in the military. You may have been a little sinner, a big sinner, or a real big sinner!
At whatever stage in your life, the Lord came to you and offered you the opportunity to have your sins forgiven. And you accepted - maybe not the first time but the second time, or third time, you were asked. And you experienced that new birth that only some-one who has had their sins forgiven and cleansed can experience. You once were lost, but now have been found.
Paul the convert
“But when God, who set me apart from birth can called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles...” (1:15-16a)
Paul’s conversion from persecutor of the church and zealot for the traditions of his ancestors to proclaimer of the good news and zealot for Christ came about because of the gracious intervention of God. Look at verse 15-16a.
With his Damascus Road experience clearly in view, Paul drew on the Old Testament’s depiction of the call of a prophet to help define his own experience. Jeremiah characterized his call to be a prophet like this: “The word of the Lord came to me: I chose you before I formed you in the womb; I set you apart before you were born. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jer. 1:4-5)
Similarly, Isaiah described his call as follows: “The Lord called me before I was born. He named me while I was in my mother’s womb...I (God) will also make you a light for the nations, to be My salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Is. 49:1, 6)
Like Jeremiah and Isaiah, God set Paul apart and called him even before his birth, while he was still in his mother’s womb. Furthermore, like Jeremiah and Isaiah, Paul’s call focused on “the nations” and God’s desire that His name be made known to them.
You see, Paul is echoing these prophetic calls to declare that his call had the same divine origin, inspiration, and authority. God’s revelation of the risen Lord to and in Paul was the critical moment in his understanding of his apostleship. Paul’s confession of Jesus as Lord transformed everything in his life. His lifestyle as well as his life goals were changed.
Anyone who has accepted Christ as their savior experiences these same kind of changes. When I accepted Christ as my savior, I had no idea that a few years later he would call me into the ministry. I was ready to be a good Sunday school teacher or a good deacon. God’s call in anyone’s life is not just to salvation - that is his first call. His second call is to serve his church. It may not be in the preaching ministry, but it is to serve as a member of a body of Christian believers.
Paul after conversion
“Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles - only James, the Lord’s brother.” (1:18-19)
To strengthen the case that there was no room for human involvement in his apostleship or in his gospel, he argued that he did not immediately consult with anyone following his conversion and call. In fact, he didn’t even go up to Jerusalem where the apostles lived. Instead, he went to Arabia, the area just south of Damascus. Only later did he return to Damascus. His gospel was from God and no one else.
Only after those three years in Arabia does Paul finally make his trip to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles. He met with Peter and James, the brother of Jesus, who by now is a believer in Jesus and a leader in the Jerusalem church. Paul’s visit with them is short, only fifteen days. Throughout his time with them, Paul wants the Galatians to know, they did not influence his theology. He is reiterating that his theology came from God, not from human channels.
Following the brief visit to Jerusalem, Paul returned to the region of Syria whose major city was Antioch, and Cilicia, whose capital was Tarsus, Paul’s hometown and place of birth. “Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’” (1:21-23)
In modern terms, we would say that Paul was carrying a lot of baggage. All the negative things that he had done in the past made all Christians suspicious of him and his motives. Until they had met him personally and heard his testimony, they weren’t sure that he’d received Christ as his savior and changed so totally and completely.
Maybe that was the reception you experienced when you came to faith in Christ and then went to tell others about your new life. Maybe they were skeptical, too. Maybe they took a “wait and see” attitude about your conversion. They wanted to see if the changes you say had been made in your life were evident. They wanted you to show them, not tell them.
As Paul began to speak in these churches and present his testimony, we see the reaction of those believers in verse 24: “And they praised God because of me.” You see, the people were so incredulous about Paul’s conversion that they were in awe about the change that God had undertaken in his life. The churches of Judea glorified God because the grace of God had transformed Saul the persecutor into Paul the proclaimer of the true faith.
When I accepted Christ as my savior, I praised God for his work of salvation and cleansing in my life. The church members who’d been praying for me also praised God. My sister, who had become a Christian a year earlier, praised God. My parents acknowledged my profession of faith and that was about it.
When you accepted Christ, was that the same for you? You were happy! Those in the church that had been praying for you were happy! Your parents, unless they were Christians, were probably either “ho-hum” or outraged and wanted you to come to your senses and reject Christ immediately.
The most important things to remember are the same things that Paul has shared with the Galatians. What was your life like before you accepted Christ and came to place your faith and trust in him as your savior? You were probably not as reprehensible in your behavior toward Christ as Paul himself was, but you still recognized that God had accomplished a great change in your life.
Then you remember the moment you accepted Christ as your savior. You remember who shared the plan of salvation with you whether from a Bible, or a pamphlet, or through preaching in a worship service. You remember the moment when that light bulb went on in your mind and you realized you were a sinner headed away from God to an eternity in hell if you didn’t make a change in your life. And instead of rejecting Christ any longer, you placed your faith and trust in him as savior.
And we can all tell about the many changes that have taken place in our lives since we’ve become believers - the people we met, the person we married, the children we raised, the work and ministry that we have done - all because of Christ in our lives!
Have you experienced that change in your life? Praise the Lord. If you haven’t experienced Christ and his salvation in your life, God has called you here today to do that. Won’t you?
